1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and an image processing method for storing a plurality of pieces of image-processed data in a format easy to use.
2. Description of the Related Art
The recent wide spread of network such as the Internet has enabled distribution of electronic documents. But still, the electronic documents are often printed on paper for distribution.
Technologies for electronically utilizing paper document, when a user has only the paper document, have been developed, in which the image of a paper document is obtained by scanning or capturing by a scanner or digital camera, so that the resulting information is converted into text data by performing character recognition processing on the obtained image.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-167532 discusses a technique for data processing in which a document image is transmitted from a terminal to a server for character recognition of the image, attribute assignment to the obtained character data, and conversion of the data into a format easy to use, and the resulting data is returned to the terminal. U.S. Pat. No. 6,404,921 and U.S. Patent Publication No. 2005/0238244 discuss a technique for vector data generation based on the outlines of target characters or figures.
Users may require data in different formats for different occasions for reuse of the data. In any occasion, the data is desirably generated as an electronic document (electronic data) in a data format easy to use.
For example, for a user who wants to edit characters in text data expressed in a certain character code after character recognition processing, the resulting data is expected to be arranged in a state the user can easily use. For a user who wants to use the resulting text data for printing as it is, the data after character recognition processing is not convenient for the user because the data may contain false recognition.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,404,921 and U.S. Patent Publication No. 2005/0238244 discuss another technique for rendering a vector object by extracting vector data from a target character. The vector data is suitable for use in printing, but not suitable for edition of text data.
The appropriate data format depends on the purpose for which the data is used by a user, such as edition of character information in text data, printing, and output for display. Accordingly, one electronic document can hardly satisfy multiple purposes simultaneously.